Desert and Sea

To get to Eilat, you have to drive through about 200 miles of unrelenting desert. Once you get there, you are treated to views of the blue-est sea I've ever seen. (No, the Red Sea is not red.) But you can go even a little bit farther. The Red Sea of Eilat is famous for its coral reefs, and boasts an underwater observatory with a submarine that you can ride on to take it all in.

This is what the road to Eilat looks like:


A view of Makhtesh Ramon, a very large crater in the Negev desert. It was formed by uneven soil erosion and not by a meteorite impact.


Someone actually lives on its edge!


Another typical warning:


Check out the temperature outside. The highest we've seen was 39.5 degrees C. (That's like 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.)


Eilat - the coral reefs begin right at the beach!


Kite-surfing in the Red Sea. The background mountains belong to Jordan.


The above-water portion of the underwater observatory.


Inhabitants of the Red Sea. None of these creatures were in a cage - they were all wild fish and mollusks and just happened to pass by (or sleep near) the observatory's windows.














The science center next to the observatory also has a program to breed sea turtles. They spend a few years after hatching there, and then are released into the sea.